Friday, 30 June 2017

Spacial Roots was recorded live at Urban Guild, Kyoto, Japan on the 11/11/2014.This was the first time Leigh & Kawabata played together. Geoff Leighis well known for his work withHenry Cowin the early 70’s, as well ascontributing to fellow Virgin bands of the time Hatfield And The North, &Slapp Happy. In recent years he has collaborated with members ofFAUST, Porcupine Tree (as Ex-WiseHeads with bassist Colin Edwin), Nurse With Wound, and musicians such asMitsuru Tabata, Tatsuya Yoshida, & Nana Tsiboe. He is currently a member of Jump For Joy (featuring members of Faust & Henry Cow), andThe Artaud Beats(also featuring Henry Cow alumni).
He is also playing on the album 'Økapi & Aldo Kapi's Orchestra / Pardonne-moi, Olivier! (16 oiseaux pour Olivier Messiaen)' (see OCD035) released on Off.
Makoto “Speed Guru” Kawabata is best known as leader of Japanese psychedelic band Acid Mother Temple (Acid Mothers Temple Official), and for his innumerable collaborations& recordings with members of Gong (Gong - Band), Guru Guru, & many other Japanese and international musicians.

The duo first played together in Kyoto, Japan, in 2014. In 2016 they played eight concerts in Japan – material from these is in the pipeline for a 2nd CD release. Their music embraces a wide range of styles and influences, mixing elements of ethnic, rock, jazz, world, ambient, & electronica, and is completely improvised.Spacial Roots is one (slightly edited) continuous track, but the download version has been split into two tracks.

Wednesday, 21 June 2017

A double compilation from the French band electrOZorus is a gift to everyone as it was actif from the beginning of the eighties till 2011 but never released a proper album.

Over the years they composed and created lots of songs and the time was right to finally listen to some of them.

Definitely crossing genres, from prog to hard to pop to jazz to musique concrète, they created something appart and particular. The words, always sing in French, are particularly important as Kriss the writer is also a poet and a lover of nice sentences and phrases.

The first cd is dedicated to all aspects of their music and is a collection that flies over all the years and music they did.

The second cd is taken out the last live concert they did completely in the dark (therefore the title ' Black Hole') to illustrate the movie from the same name.

We are in 1980 when Christophe Vandeputte, not yet Kriss Electro, meets Roland Duval, seven years his elder (Chris will borrow his pseudonym only thirty-two years later, when the band Electronique De France (see also OCD020), of which he is the leader, will be born); guitarist whose technique has been fueled by the rock of Jimi Hendrix, but also jazz by John Abercrombie and John McLaughlin, he is looking for a drummer to set up the best jazz-rock trio in the world, hope for any singer-guitarist of seventeen years of that time.

During the first rehearsal, Chris is very impressed by Roland's rhythmic independence and metronomic precision, whose vast musical culture in almost every field fascinates him: contemporary scholarly music, from John Adams' A to Z of Bernd Alois Zimmerman, or from the most confidential opposition rock of the time, such as the Etron Fou Leloublan group, and the very cerebral and yet so-lively jazz of Anthony Braxton. He soon realized that frequenting this guy is an extraordinary luck and from then on, he convinces him to play and create with him. It is thus that they both begin to dream of sonorous interactions, typographical, plastic or other worlds, judged by all to be irreconcilable, leaving to the shocks it provokes the chance to blow the categories and the accepted conventions.

At work in this curious dicephale group called electrOZorus: Roland makes cry sounds on Revox, Teac, Tascam, - all tape recorders with two or four tracks -, blowing, pinching, slamming, whipping, hammering metals, skins and woods, oboes, strings or synthesizing keys, while Chris invents constellations of chords, melodies and words, which he lays on his archipelago-like scores.

If the two comrades are solicited in other projects, sometimes together, when for example Chris brings Roland to participate in the recording of the next album of Lio, it is nevertheless in their previous dual formation that they seem to cross the time in the best way, taking back from their shelves, formerly magnetic, now digital, from 1980 to today, their creations untimely, at the time, but never against the current ...

Is electrOZorus a living dinosaur, a bird-headed god, a magician of electronics, a circular helix, that is, a curve drawn on a cylinder of revolution, such as in each of its points its tangent forms with OZ a constant angle of measurement? In any case, it is not of his time, but of all time in all times!

Saturday, 10 June 2017

Second release from Tadash (see ODG039) on Off, the album 'Rivals' combines again a mix synthesizers, dark melodic curves, new-wave basses, post-punk drums and soft voices, though much more pop in its approach.

The tracks were written, recorded, deleted, recorded again and finally disorganized in a typical manner by the two French musicians of Tadash.

Mixing 80ties, 90ties and current sounds, singing in English or French, listening to Tadash is definitively a very rewarding experience.

Thursday, 8 June 2017

'Constellation in Motion' was recorded live in May 2014 at Kaohsiung Music Hall, Taiwan, by three of the most well known and respected Taïwanese musicians: Minyen Hsieh on soprano saxophone, penny whistle and finger cymbals, Shih-Yang Lee on (prepared) piano and Fang-Yi Liu on voice, saw, objects and toys. The music is an incursion and variations on a mixture of Jazz, avant garde and contemporary classical. Though those seven tracks sound as they were completely writen pieces, they are all improvisations on the spot. This is amazing considering the complexity and density of the various pieces. Ultimately one will find a way to cross all those genres and enjoy one of the most thrilling experience of listening music!

Minyen Hsieh, is a highly regarded, award-winning Taiwanese saxophonist. The Taipei native, born in 1981, started to perform professionally at the age of 19, and studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels. There he studied with John Ruocco and Jeroen Van Herzeele. His strong improvisation skills and rich tone has made him a coveted player in several genres varying from: jazz, rock, hip-hop, electronic to avant-garde. Outside of Taiwan, Minyen has also been welcomed to grace stages through Japan, China, HK, Macau, Malaysia and more. He won the Taichung Saxophone Competition in 2012, and regularly contributes to various jazz, pop and experimental projects in Taiwan. His most recent recording is the well-received, best-selling "Firry Path" (2014). Soundcloud

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Shih-Yang Lee, from Taipei, has performed and recorded in Asia and Europe. Lee is the co-leader of the world music improvisation ensemble KaDaoYin. In addition, he has made himself a name as a composer and performer in some of the best drama and dance companies in Taiwan. His live album “Galactic Alignment” with Fred van Hove won the “Honorary Mention of the New Releases of the 2014 of New York City Jazz Record. “Music Non Stop” won the “Best Musician” of 6th Indie Music Award of Taiwan. He is also the founder and music director of “Taiwan International Improvised Music Festival”. Soundcloud

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Fangyi Liu, is a Musician based in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. His work focuses on sound collage and field recordings, where he uses objects and voice as source material in his improvised performance.

He mentioned two major points. First is about the human voice. The pronounce action from different races and cultures contained not only languages, but also the sound of out of languages, before languages, distortion and lapsing of languages, etc. Even the unestablished pronouncing still can bring the signal or context to the receivers. Second is about the environment sound or sound field. People are surrounded with sounds induced by every vital or mortal things. The problem of sensing or recognition environmental sound are his major projects. He tries to use any kind of materials or methods to approach these two topics. Fangyiliu.bandcamp.com

In talks before the concert

Digital release on the 9th of June 2017.Digitally distributed on KKBOX for all the Asian friends who want to listen and discover!

Off-Matonge is a new series on Off born from the love of the various musics coming from Congo.

Matonge is a district in Ixelles, one of the municipalities of Brussels-Capital, which derives its current name from a district of Kinshasa, Matonge (former Camp Renkin) , located in the commune of Kalamu.

DJeromebosch is the curator of this new series that will bring all kind of African music typically heard and played all over Matonge.

The first release is the music of the movie ' Le ministre des poubelles' directed by Quentin Noirfalisse and composed and played by Didan and Petit Pierre.

Quentin Noirfalisse (1986) is a young writer-director and producer at Dancing Dog Productions.

After living in eastern Congo, he made a first transmedia documentary behind the scenes of the free Internet (Geek Politics - 2013), before embarking on a three-year journey with the Minister of Poubelles. Today, he is preparing an interactive documentary on Brussels, her faces and her data, and a film on environmental advocates in the Congo Basin. He is also a freelance journalist, co-founder of Médor magazine and has published for Le Vif / L'Express, Moustique, Slate.fr, Imagine, Alter Echos, Notre Afrik, Le Soir.

Didan (tenor saxophone and vocals) played with the greatest: Johnny Bokelo, Cercul Jazz, Somo Somo, Veve de Verckys, Celi Bitshou or Dizzy Madjeku. If you ask him more about his bio he will answer you: "now you have the fish and you have to grill it as you want".

Petit Pierre (guitars and vocals) grew up in the Kasa-Vubu district of Kinshasa. He has been the "little" protégé of Bavon Marie Marie and has participated in several prestigious groups including the Jamel Orchestra, the Negro Success, Vévé de Verckys and the TP OK Jazz by Franco Luambo.

They specially composed a song 'Matongé Na Ngai' (my Matonge of myself) sung in Lingala by Sylvie Nawasadio (formerly in Zap Mama) on the top of the score for the release of the album.The video:

Thursday, 1 June 2017

Brussels is the second single issue from the album Gold (see OCD033). It has been remixed by wizard Pierre Vervloesem. The song evokes some of the architectural disasters that have taken place in the belgian capital from the Fifties up until today.

"I love it. It makes me want to spend the entire afternoon playing Baby Fire, Candelilla, Savages and then by as much as possible of the discography of Siouxsie and The Banshees. If only there wasn't so much other work to be heard as well. CD of the week had we such a thing of course."

About Off

Off is a Belgian based label founded by Alain Lefebvre in 2007.
If you want to download, click on any Bandcamp buttons in the 'Listen and download' page. For the rest, just click on the name of the provider you want to buy from in each Believe player under the album you want to download.
If you want the real thing, you will find a BUY button linked to Paypal at the end of each cd presentation. You can also go on the Catalogue page and click on the cd you want to discover. You will find again the BUY button at the bottom of the page. Or go on the Shop page then just go to paypal.com and order at:
order@stilll.org , just leave a comment with which cds you want.